‘Heartless’ businessman who stole from sick, dying children faces prison

Updated 9:27 am, Tuesday, February 14, 2012

UPDATE: The sentencing hearing for Randall Morrison, a former Redmond resident who admitted to stealing more than $100,000 from a charity for sick children and their families, was continued Monday after his attorney withdrew. A new sentencing date was not immediately set.

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The former treasurer of a charity that donates to Ronald McDonald House is headed to prison for a series of thefts that deprived sick children and their families of holiday events.

Federal prosecutors in Seattle described the crime as “heartless.”

Set to be sentenced Monday morning in U.S. District Court, Randall Morrison, 50, previously admitted to stealing $142,000 from the Ronald McDonald House Holiday Cruise fund while he served as treasurer of the charity, which funded holiday events for children and families recieving services through Ronald McDonald House. Morrison was not affiliated with the larger charity, Ronald McDonald House Charities of Western Washington & Alaska.

Morrison’s thefts left the smaller, holiday charity crippled and largely unable to continue its mission – providing entertainment to severely ill children and their families during the holidays.

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“The heartlessness of his acts is indescribable,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven Masada told the court, asking that Morrison be sentenced to just more than two years in prison.

That arguably paltry sentence – 27 months – is actually six months longer than prison term suggested by federal sentencing guidelines. Morrison has asked that he be sentenced to 18 months in prison, near the maximum usual sentence for a person in his position.

“Mr. Morrison’s insatiable desire for money is inexcusable,” Masada continued, noting that Morrison earned at times $160,000 a year in legitimate income. “While the defendant was fixated on improving his already high standard of living, the true victims of his crime were consumed with the fragility of life itself.”

Morrison systematically drained the financial reserves of the Ronald McDonald House Holiday Cruise fund and used money specifically earmarked to benefit extremely ill children and their families to fund his own lifestyle, which prosecutors note exceeded what he could afford through an “already sizeable” income. In doing so, he forced the charity to cancel events and curtail its work on behalf of sick children.

For his part, Morrison claims he was driven to steal due to gambling debts he’d accrued while struggling to cope with his wife’s health problems.

Morrison went to work for the Ronald McDonald House Holiday Cruise charity in 2005, serving as the organization’s treasurer.

The charity organizes activities for ill children and their families. The organization’s biggest annual event since the mid-1990s has been a holiday cruise for children and families who’ve been displaced from their homes at Christmas due to their children’s illnesses. The charity provided a wish list for sick kids and their siblings.

Writing the court, Masada noted that Morrison’s thefts forced the charity to curtail other events – festivals on Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, an Easter brunch – and cutback significantly on the holiday cruise.

With few internal safeguards in place, Morrison was able to conduct a long-running theft by wiring money or cutting checks on the charity’s account.

As the theft continued, Morrison – who left his job at Microsoft and moved to Ohio in 2006 – had all the charity’s bank statements and financial statements sent directly to him. He fabricated reports to the charity’s board to hide the fact that the charity’s accounts were dwindling.

The embezzlement came to light in January 2009, when Morrison’s new employer – Morrison was its chief financial officer – contacted the charity about apparent fraud on Morrison’s business credit card. The investigation that followed showed more than $100,000 had gone missing.

Having pleaded guilty to two counts of wire fraud in August, Morrison admitted to the thefts and promised to repay the money he stole.

Writing the court on his behalf, Morrison’s public defender described him as a “hard worker” with no criminal history who’d worked as a financial analyst at several large corporations, including Hewlett Packard and Ford.

At the time of the thefts, Morrison was struggling to hold his family together as his wife coped with a serious medical condition, defense attorney Lynn Hartfield told the court.

“Having dabbled in gambling and risky investments for many years, Mr. Morrison also found himself losing huge amounts of money during this period,” Hartfield said in court documents. “Unable to repay his gambling debts, and terrified of what would happen to his wife if he were to go under financially, he began to take money from (the charity), always intending to pay it back.”

The defense attorney went on to say Morrison has finally stopped gambling and is going to treatment for his addiction. Morrison, the attorney said, continued to grapple with his crimes.

“Mr. Morrison is haunted by what he has done, and is extremely concerned about the long-term impact of his conduct on his wife and children,” Hartfield told the court.

Prior to sentencing, several people victimized by Morrison filed letters with the court expressing their grief over his betrayal and the damage done to the organization.

“Randy Morrison all but killed the organization,” one board member wrote. “We’ll be hanging on by a thread.

Morrison’s thefts forced the charity to cancel all but one of its annual events. The charity now teeters on the brink of shutdown.

Beyond the thefts, Morrison also failed to do his job as treasurer. He failed to keep up the charity’s registration with the state, resulting in penalties to the charity, or file tax returns.

“Randall Morrison – fueled purely by greed – preyed on the generosity and the trust of others without regret or remorse for those left in his wake,” Masada told the court.

“The impact on the true victims, the children and their families, is absolutely heart-wrenching,” the prosecutor continued. “Families displaced from their homes by the need for life-preserving medical care are given a momentary reprieve from the unspeakable pain that must accompany a sick or perhaps dying child.”

Those good times – for some families, the last they would have with a dying child – were stolen by Morrison.

Morrison is scheduled to be sentenced Monday by U.S. District Court Judge James Robart.